Delbarton, which lost some key stars to graduation and a few more to recent injuries, received several clutch performances to win its second straight title, while Morristown smashed two meet records at the 40th Morris County Boys Relay Championships last night at Drew University in Madison.

With star sprinter Brendan Kenny (Achilles) and top thrower Tommy Rhodes (knee) sidelined for Delbarton, guys like Jordan Earlywine, Luke Mayer, Mike Benz, Chris Beute, Teryon Lowery and Matt Olpinger rose to the occasion and sparked Delbarton to a 48-46 victory over Randolph to repeat as champion and claim the third title in school history. Delbarton also won in 1976.

With the outcome of the meet still in doubt, Benz cleared a meet best 14-0 and Beute matched his personal best by making 11-9 to give Delbarton its lone victory in the pole vault with a combined 25-0. And then Oplinger (5-3) and Lowery (5-6) combined to place fifth in the high jump to clinch the team title for Delbarton heading into the meet-concluding 4x400.

Oplinger, who had been out all season with a foot injury, provided a big jolt in his return as he split 22.8 in the 4x200 and 23.1 on the sprint medley to help those teams each place third.

Earlywine had carries of 2:04 in the SM and 2:03 on the runner-up 4x800 team.

``Jordan and Matt are the kind of guys that always rise to the occasion,'' said Mayer, who ran on the SM, 4x200 and fifth-place shuttle hurdles. ``No matter how they are feeling, they always come through for the team.''

Delbarton coach Dave Sulley wasn't so sure his team could successfully defend its title because of the rash of injuries.

``Without some of our top guys I really wasn't sure we could win this again,'' Sulley said. ``But the sprint medley scored more than I thought we would and the high jump iced it by getting those two points. But it was really all the guys stepping up. Oplinger's foot was hurting him during the meet and he went to the trainer after the 4x200 and got it taped up and went back out there and ran a great leg on the SM. It was just a great team effort.''

Morristown broke the only two meet records in the boys competition by winning the distance medley in 10:43.28, No. 6 in the state this season, and the 4x800 in 8:22.21.

The DM meet record stood since 1977 when Morris Catholic ran 10:46.5.

``We saw what those records were and based on what we had already run this season we knew we could get them'' said Sean Lyons, who split 4:28.0 and 2:02.4 as the anchor on both record breaking teams.

Madison also had a record-breaking performance when it ran 31.31, the second-fastest time in the state this season, to smash the school record of 32.5 set in 1985.

``This was a big goal of ours,'' said Dylan Anderson, Madison's leadoff hurdler. ``We had been so close to already this season (32.82 last month) and we figured if we could break our school record we'd also have a great chance to win the event."